New bikes and terrible roads

A day trying to book various flights, it started yesterday and got partially abandoned. The frustrations are unbelievable, first the WiFi in the hotel is up and down all the time, to save ourselves from scammers we have a vpn activated and it doesn't cope with the flaky Internet, I ended up switching the vpn off and tethering to my phone. Then Halifax have played a blinder, refusing to accept my payments for larger sums, then they just informed me my Credit card will change to Visa from March which means it will be no use to me as I have no way of getting a new card, I don't even know where we will be, remember our Chase cards will be useless from next month as well. The Banks don't give a fuck about their decisions. 

We have most flights booked now after a very tense morning on the laptop, we are meant to be enjoying travel not stressing on the computer. This is the part I don't like, anyway off to the bank to see if I can get another couple of million to last us until tomorrow 

Another day another frustrating day asking the bank WTF is going on , according to them it should be no problem.

Picked up the bikes , Yamaha PG 1 , actually quite cool for 115cc and seem to have more power. We went to a local waterfall along with several thousand tourists, I was underwhelmed, especially with the roads , what roads ? A 10 metre splash of tarmac in amongst the gravel and of course the local minibus drivers are totally stupid ( as are the European tourists driving with shorts and bikinis on, I suppose they can get a skin graft when they get home 

.

It was an education, I will say the old part of luang Pranang is very nice and you can get nice wine and whisky at not stupid prices. On the road back from the waterfalls I stopped to get a photo, somebody nudged me as they passed on their scooter the result of which it flew out my hands and smashed the screen. Not a happy day.

We headed north towards long khiaw about 100 miles, we set off early but we had a contingency if it was too far. The roads as soon as we left luang prabang got busy with mainly Chinese trucks and local  vans and also the road would be good for 200 metres then disappeared into gravel and massive potholes. It was and felt really dodgy. After 60 odd miles and more than 4 hours we had had enough and stopped in a small town called Nam thouam and got a room for 190,000 kip, around 8 pounds, it's not the ritz but it's OK and my legs and shoulders and back could take no more. Very impressed with the wee Yamahas though . Tomorrow hopefully we will keep on keeping on .

After a pleasant evening watching the trucks bounce down the main street we set of for Nong Khiaw around 30 miles, the first 15 were as expected really bad but the last 15 were only bad. Almost 2 hours, we stopped at a backpacker cafe and got talking to a Canadian French guy, his female travel partner ( not sure if it was more than that ) was Dutch and had a Guzzi V7 at home! 

Got booked into our digs and went for a wander, loads of tourists which was a surprise as we were the only ones last night . This place reminds me of the news films fron the late 60s when the USA were fighting in Vietnam

waterfall 

.New bikes

Shit roads 

Where my camera got toasted 

watching the trucks ruin the road

petrol stop

nong khiaw 

not sure

they teach them young here

Sidecar racer of the future 

Nice

mainn st 

laos bagpipes 

Happy